


black dog (clear, acoustic, live through this)

by Raven (singlecrow)



Category: Harry Potter - Rowling
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-15
Updated: 2010-05-15
Packaged: 2017-10-09 11:22:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/86749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/singlecrow/pseuds/Raven
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The terms of the injunction are very precise. [non-magical AU]</p>
            </blockquote>





	black dog (clear, acoustic, live through this)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Cider &amp; Black](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/734) by archduck. 



"In nomine patris, et filii..."

"Et spiriti sanctum," said Remus's voice, drifting through behind the opening door. "Are you getting religion in your old age, Harry? Oh, and do come in," he added, stepping back and giving Harry some space to shake the rain off. "It seems an odd thing to be reciting to yourself in the rain, not that I have much standing to complain of people being odd. Tea?"

"Yes, please," Harry said, pulling off his sopping shoes and socks and taking a look around the hallway, dim in the early-evening light. It was always a little hard to see in here, and Remus had placed tiny lit candles on the windowsills and ledges. They cast ragged shadows amidst the cosy gleams. "I'm not getting religion, Remus. I've got to do a reading at school next term, and I'm trying to memorise it."

"Aha," Remus said, as Harry wandered through in his bare feet. The kitchen was full of candles too, but the electric lights were on and the table was covered in tea-stained galleys. "I take it you were volunteered for that solemn duty."

"Well, yes," Harry admitted, and took the tea gratefully; one sip seemed to warm him right down to his bones. There was an unfamiliar edge in the taste of it.

"Ginger," said Remus, off his look. "I remember your father and I having to do the same thing, when we were at school. Well, I say we had to do it... mostly I had to do it, and James mouthed along and gave me an encouraging pat on the back at appropriate moments. Sirius always thought it was hilarious."

Harry laughed. "About Sirius..."

"He's having a nap," Remus said, easily, busy with washing the teaspoons, and then something went out of him; a sudden give in his elbows landed him on the worksurface, and then he turned around. Sitting down at the kitchen table with uncharacteristic heavinesss, he looked abruptly tired, and older. "Oh, Harry. Try not to be so scared, all right? Sirius is not... well, he's not well, I suppose. He's been better in his life."

Harry nodded, and looked at the grey in Remus's hair, the old scratches on his hands.

"But we're here, we're all right, and so shall he be." A sudden movement of his head; a sudden flash of candle-sparkle in the depths of his pupils. "He's been looking forward to seeing you. As have I, of course."

Harry smiled. "Thanks. Mum and Dad said you were doing all right, I just..."

"Worried, because you're a good young man and nothing at like your father was at your age." Remus grinned back at him. "Harry, I am sorry to bring it up again, but you remember you can't tell..."

"Anyone, I know," Harry said promptly. "I told my friends at school I was spending the holidays with a family friend. They've heard of you, did you know?"

"Really?" Remus said. "Dear me, should young boys be reading such salacious literature?"

Harry laughed. "There isn't, you know, in them. Sex, and stuff."

"You should read more carefully." Remus's expression softened; it always did, Harry had noticed, whenever he was about to talk about Sirius. "But yes, the terms of the injunction are very precise. We get our anonymity, but only if we work at it. It means a whole new identity for Sirius and something of a reclusive lifestyle for me. We're lucky that I tend that way anyway, and that no one really knew who I was twelve or thirteen years ago. There are advantages to being a starving writer right the way through your twenties."

Harry smiled. "I should call my mum and dad, tell them I'm here…"

"You're welcome to stay," Remus said. "There's plenty of room for you, you're only a little one. But I quite understand if you want to return to the bosom of your family, so to speak."

"I might," Harry said, "or I might… oh."

Sirius was standing in the doorway, lit only by the candles in the hall. "Harry," he said, quietly.

"Hi," Harry said, awkwardly; the silence was too heavy, suddenly, to break. They stood still: still enough to hear the rain in the gutters and the guttering of the flames.

 

*

_It's dim and cold and it's November, and the night is drawing in fast. It's Sirius's birthday and he was born in the dark and November is the end of the world anyway, it's the worst month of the year and it's why Sirius was born in it. It's a stupid melodramatic teenage thought, and Sirius has it anyway because everything seems to be getting dark lately and he's been spending all his time in bed and besides that's not the only reason this is a crappy birthday. James got it all wrong. James got him socks._

_"What've socks got to do with it?" he yells after a while. "So I got you socks for your birthday! I also got you tickets to a good band!"_

_"A band I've never heard of!" Sirius yells back._

_"You have! I asked you last month if you wanted to see them!" James stops, narrows his eyes. "You're a cranky bastard, lately. Can't do anything right, can I."_

_Sirius wants to say, don't you see it's dark, don't you see, but James is standing there holding socks in both hands and he's a good bloke, he is. "What're they called, the band?_

_"Lily and the Lupins," James says, more softly. A pause, while Sirius wonders about that. "It's a kind of flower."_

_Sirius smiles. "Okay."_

 

*

In the end Harry stayed. "You're not causing any trouble, are you?" his mum asked on the phone, and Remus took it from him and said, "Lily, do shut up" before he could think of anything to say, so instead he conveyed his thanks with hand gestures behind Remus's head.

And Sirius smiled. It was worth it, to see that. Remus caught Harry's eye, gave him a tiny, wry smile, and went back into the kitchen. "Chicken is what's for dinner," he said. "You two behave."

"It's good to see you again," Harry said, still feeling awkward, but less than before; it wasn't like Christmas, or the summer before, when Sirius had still been a stranger, when the house was full of strewn blankets and rotting fruit and the enormity of it all had still been sinking in. Harry had been thirteen, and he'd come home to his mother crying, and Remus had been asleep on the kitchen table with Sirius asleep in his bed. Harry shivered, briefly, and thought about the difference the year had made.

"You too, Harry," Sirius said. "We've been looking forward to your coming for weeks. I mean, Remus hasn't said so in so many words, but he's certainly been cleaning a lot. He seems to have found his inner housewife."

Harry laughed. "I didn't know he had one."

"Neither did I. It suits him, though." Sirius smiled, and Harry thought peculiar thoughts about Remus in a pinny. "I mean it. He's never happier than when he has someone to look after, and now… well." A rueful shrug. "We're made for each other in a lot of ways."

Harry said, "How have you been?" – and then groaned. "I'm sorry. That was a stupid question."

Sirius raised his eyebrows. "Really, Harry? Why is that?"

"I mean," Harry was floundering, "you've, you've been in prison. For years. For something you weren't responsible for. You're not – I mean, asking you how you are... it's just. You know."

"No one asked me how I was for twelve years, Harry," Sirius said, sharply. "No one thought I'd understand, no one cared enough for the answer."

Harry didn't say anything.

"And I'll tell you: I'm feeling well, today. It's lovely to have you here, and Remus is making some kind of chicken and apricot sauce thing, which by the way he got out of Delia Smith, and that makes me feel good, too."

"Oh," Harry said.

Remus came in, quietly. "Dinner," he said, and with a soft deliberation in his movements, pulled Sirius to his feet. Their hands clasped, unclasped, and Harry remembered his mother crying and said nothing at all.

 

*

_The tickets are for tonight._

_"I'll buy you all your drinks, to make up for the socks," James says, and Sirius has no problem with that. He gets some vodka from the bar, drinks cider to chase it down, thinks about them swirling around together in his stomach. The club is all exposed brickwork and neon-strip lighting; it's painfully, angularly cool. Sirius is, too._

_James is in love with the lead singer. Sirius isn't surprised. She's beautiful, the lights bringing out the flash of her eyes, the red of her hair. Sirius has the bite of alcohol in his mouth and the fizz of live music in his blood, with his body smashed against the barriers and his head smashed against the bassline, pound, pound, pound in his chest with the bone-deep rhythm of his heart._

_The darkness swirls around his head, the gleam of thrown glowsticks flickers across his vision. The lead guitarist comes onto the stage. He's perfect._

 

*

The weather got better during the week, and on his next visit Harry brought gifts. His mum had baked a walnut cake, and sent it with him alongside a plastic bag of things she'd found in the attic. "Things she thought you might like," he explained, laying the things on the table. "Mum and Dad have been having a bit of a clear-out lately. Mum says she'll come back for the cake tin, it'll give her an excuse to check up on you both."

Sirius, predictably, went for the cake first. "Mmmm, mixed nuts," he said, breathing in the smell. "Just like Remus and me." He grinned at Harry's raised eyebrows. "I'm allowed to say things like that."

"Allowed to say things like what?" The sound of Remus coming down the stairs was a prelude to the man himself, coming in and throwing himself down on a chair. There was ink on his fingers. "No, don't tell me, I don't need to know. Hello, Harry, how are you?"

"Hi," Harry said, amused. "How's it going?"

"Fine, fine," Remus muttered, "only the big denouement to go now. Lots of sex and drugs and rock 'n' roll. Maybe I'll put in another murder, I don't know. What've you got there?"

"Things from Mum." Harry passed him along a slice of cake, which Sirius was cutting with great care if also great liberality, and handed him the bag. Remus rummaged inside and pulled out a pair of socks and something small and plastic.

"She put a note in," Harry said indistinctly through a mouthful of cake. "What is that thing?"

Remus didn't answer immediately, turning the object over in his fingers. He was reading the note, and there was a small smile lingering about his face.

"Remus?" said Sirius, with a hint of worry in his voice.

"'Dear Remus. Use them to remind Sirius. I'll come and visit later in the week and help. Love, Lily.'" Remus laughed lightly. "Bless her, there's a reason she's the love of my life."

Sirius and Harry made identical noises of disbelief. Remus lifted his head, still looking dreamy. "There is more than one type of love, boys. Read your Plato."

"What is that?" Harry asked again.

"That, Harry, is a guitar pleck." Remus tossed it over to him. "Please tell me you are not such a public-school choirboy that you don't know what that is."

"I'm not a choirboy!" Harry said, outraged.

"What a shame." Remus was looking at him, all bright mischief. "I was."

Sirius laughed. "Harry, you may not believe this, but he had the voice of an angel. Until he drank a lot of booze, did a lot of drugs, smoked himself into husky oblivion and ended up waggling his arse on stage in every club in Camden. With your mum," he addd as an afterthought.

Remus drew in a sharp breath. "You remember," he said.

Sirius smiled, wanly. "Yeah.

Harry wasn't sure what to say.

 

*

_"You're perfect," Sirius says again, when the guitarist is sitting across from him. James introduced them with a knowing smile, but Sirius doesn't care about anything but Remus Lupin, with his bright eyes that are so familiarly hollow in the pallor of his face. Sirius thinks about tracing hands over the lines of him, mapping the skin stretched too tight across bone._

_"Am I?" says Remus, with the slight wryness in his tone. "A boost to my ego is always welcome, mind you."_

_"You were..." Sirius says, and then says nothing; looks at the perfection of him, looks at the shadows in his face, the savage fragility in the way his hands move, clutch, convulse, fall still. "You."_

_Remus says, "I heard it was your birthday. Can I get you a drink?"_

_Sirius nods, mutely, and when asked what he would like, says: "Surprise me."_

 

*

Hours later, Remus had dug out a shoebox of pictures. Harry recognised some of them because his mum had copies, too; there was one in particular he remembered, Remus and his mum sitting on the edge of a stage, arms swung loosely around each other. They were grinning, and they looked so young – his mum's hair bright flame red rather than the auburn it was now, Remus with sharper features and pale, pale skin – that Harry grinned in response, almost instinctively. Harry's dad always made fun of that picture, made jokes about Remus running off with her behind his back. Now, looking at the way Sirius and Remus were sitting on the sofa, apart but close together, Harry wondered if there were levels to the joke he hadn't understood.

"Right," Sirius said at last, and stifled a yawn. "Much as I'm enjoying this, bed calls, I think."

Remus nodded. "Let me find somewhere to put Harry" – he grinned in Harry's direction – "perhaps a cupboard under the stairs, or a cardboard box. Or maybe even our very respectable spare room."

Sirius smiled, but weakly; Harry knew enough to recognise how tired he was. Remus got up, touched Sirius's shoulder so they were face-to-face, and said something too quietly for Harry to hear. They stayed like that for another moment, just touching, and then Sirius was walking slowly out of the room. He had a smile for Harry before he'd quite gone.

For a moment, there was only silence, and the gleaming piece of plastic catching the light in Remus's hands. The room seemed cooler, suddenly, and Remus was sitting up straight, with tension in his shoulders.

"Remus," Harry said, a little too desperately. "Is Sirius..."

"He's been better." Remus had his eyes shut, and Harry thought suddenly: _that goes for you, too_. "He's been better than this."

"Remus..."

Remus said, "Harry. Don't be scared."

"I'm not," Harry said, lying.

"Me, too," Remus said, and opened his eyes. "He's been through a lot, you know. Oh, I know you know. Exoneration is all very well, but getting your life back? That's harder. It's the hardest thing in the world, to see more than, than featureless slices of daylight and to... to live. And Sirius has been fighting for so long, and I am, I mean, I have..." A pause, and then a small, wry smile. "I have been talking to myself. Harry, I do apologise."

Harry stood up and took a deep breath. "Can I get you some water?"

He didn't wait for the answer, running into the kitchen to get the water and give it to Remus without really catching his eye. Remus took it from him without a word, got up, rummaged in his desk in the corner of the room, drank the water in one go. "I'm sorry."

"Please don't," Harry said. "I mean… I don't know it all, you know? And I know you both think I'm really young. But... I want to help. I mean, don't think you have to hide things from me."

Remus smiled. "Harry, I say this too often, but you take after your parents in more ways than the obvious."

Harry smiled back, tentatively.

"And if I may now show you to our palatial boxroom..."

Harry followed him up the stairs. It was a tiny room, cosy, with a bed that almost touched the walls, and he was very comfortable, but he didn't sleep.

 

*

_Their first kiss has a dark tint to it, the cider and black Remus brought, and then it deepens into something else, something a little savage, a little uncontrolled. Sirius pulls back and says, helplessly, "Remus..."_

_"Shhh," Remus says, and pulls him to his feet. There's an unexpected strength in that skinny frame. "Come with me."_

_He pulls him along the pit of the club, out the stairs, up onto the dim and rainsoaked street. Sirius breathes in the fresh air and shivers._

_"I'm not perfect," Remus says, and they set off into the dark._

*

 

"We're scaring the boy," Sirius said. His voice echoed, resonantly, around the old spaces of the old house.

"Good." Remus was tired. "He's young and he's going to grow up. Better for all of us that he grows up knowing a little of how the world works. We're meant to be educating him."

"We're meant to be taking him to the theatre and buying him edifying books on his birthdays!" Sirius snapped. "Not... this."

"Not what, Sirius?" Remus still sounded more tired than anything; it was easy to picture the hair falling into his eyes, the slump in his shoulders. "Not what? Not real life? He was a good child, Sirius; too serious for his own good, and thoughtful with it. He's a good boy, and he'll be a good man. I am not afraid."

"Me neither," Sirius said.

"You're lying."

"No, I'm not."

"I am, too." Remus was sounding different now. "Oh, God, I am too, Sirius. But Lily doesn't... she really isn't afraid. Her memory's sharper than ours, and she isn't. And you know James."

Sirius said, "Does Harry even know what diminished responsibility _means_? Does he?"

"Of course he does." Remus sighed. "A bright boy, as well as everything else."

"Well, then."

"Well, what?"

"Well, every child should have a loving pair of gay uncles," Sirius said, wonderingly. "It's... traditional."

"Then we'll have to be the best gay uncles we can be." Remus laughed. "What are we, God help us? An aging writer and an exonerated prisoner? We'll do the best we can."

Sirius said, "I love you."

"You too, you wanker."

"Did you," and now Sirius was sounding a little scared, now his voice had a falter in it, "did you always, did you, even when" – and Harry took a step back, closed the boxroom door and pushed his fingers in his ears.

He counted to a hundred. Then he stood up, opened the door with a bang and made as much noise as possible going down the stairs.

Remus was standing in the kitchen, looking through the window at the garden. Sirius was at the table. There was a warmth in the room, and the smell of coffee steaming from the pot on the sideboard. "Morning, Harry," Remus said easily. "Breakfast is on its way."

"His inner housewife," Sirius explained. He was smiling.

"Good," Harry said, and sat down for bacon and eggs.

 

*

_"My, my, Sirius," James says, wandering into the kitchen in pyjama bottoms with his hair standing on end, "and here was me always thinking you were asexual."_

_"Shut up," Sirius says, ineffectually. He knows he's blushing furiously. "You just shut up, Potter."_

_James raises his eyebrows. "Such ingratitude. Surely what you mean is 'thank you, thank you James Potter from the bottom of my heart for taking me to a gig so now I'm not a virgin'."_

_"Bastard!" Sirius tries to throw a teatowel at him, and misses, and then he's gone in the direction of the bathroom and Sirius can hear him cackling from behind the locked door._

_He goes back to his own room, stops in the doorway, can't help smiling. Remus is wrapped up in all the sheets, dozing in the morning sunshine from the window. Sirius watches him and thinks about light: about the whiteness of the daylight on the whiteness of his skin, the way that darkness makes him larger than life so now he looks washed out, washed up by tides of fortune into Sirius's bed._

_"Coffee's up," he says, quietly, and Remus's eyes snap open._

_"Thanks," he says, but doesn't move. After a while, he says, "I think you should know. I'm not always so good at this."_

_Sirius has got back into bed with him, is absent-mindedly twirling his hair. "At.." He raises his eyebrows. "I beg to differ."_

_"Not that." Remus smiles up at him. "No... this."_

_"Getting out of bed, yeah," Sirius says. "Yeah, I know."_

_"You don't mind_?" Remus stares.__

_Sirius shakes his head. "No. You and me, we'll be all right."_


End file.
